Please Help Long Delay in External checks

[ITpro]

Hi Friends

 

I am a csl NEC with co assigned in june 2009 Jan 2009 applicant and all the procedures have been completed by March 2010.

 

but every time i ask my DIAC they reply that my application is going through external checks, i am fed up with this same reply please help me how to resolve this issue'

 

your help will be much appreciated.

 

thankx

[User Name]

What occupation are you? If you are IT and you had NEC then you are not CSL. And CSL was revoked months ago so you are in cat 4 with indefinite wait.

[ITpro]

No i fall in 20 july priority processing category "computing professionals NEC will be contacted by case officer"

Profession is Network Security

 

i asked my co after 20 july and he told me i still belong to cat 3 and he is just waiting for external checks which are made by ASIO. ???

[User Name]

No i fall in 20 july priority processing category "computing professionals NEC will be contacted by case officer"

Profession is Network Security

 

i asked my co after 20 july and he told me i still belong to cat 3 and he is just waiting for external checks which are made by ASIO. ???

 

Just drop in another email, probably dragging his/her feet.

[Guest VickyMel]

Hi

IT Pro

 

If you take a look through this thread you may find some links to other threads - at the time it was relevant there were a number of people who were really delayed due to external checks.

http://www.pomsinoz.com/forum/migration-issues/70633-176-ss-non-csl-where-you-now.html and search it for external checks (its a long thread mainly about other things)

 

Unfortunately I don't think any had much success in getting things sorted - if I remember correctly the external means that they contact authorities in your country and the delay is quite possibly due to that side and they go no further until they hear back.

 

VickyMel

[Guest Gollywobbler]

Hi IT Pro

 

To add to what VickyMel has said, ASIO is one of the main external agencies involved (ie it is external to DIAC.)

 

About 3 months ago, the ASIO boss grumbled in the major newspapers in Oz. He said that he was short of enough processing staff as it was and he was scouting around all the other Fed Govt Departments to try to find some more staff.

 

He went on to complain that the increased number of irregular maritime arrivals had complicated his own life even further. Asylum seekers have top priority in getting the Aussie Government to complete all its various security checks about them.

 

So the ASIO boss complained that he has an insufficient number of staff members trying to cope with the increased demands caused by the boat people, plus the applicants for other types of visa were beginning to complain that their own applications were/are being held up for an unreasonably long time.

 

The guy made it all sound well & truly tragic. I figured that he gets paid enough to quit it with the Tragedy Queen routine. That said, when you do something as boring as security checks all day long, the slightest amount of work-related stress will inspire a Sickie and so forth...

 

Cheers

 

Gill

[gr8leo87]

Hang in there.

 

I am also one of the unfortunates who are delayed by these external checks. They take like forever and its a b**ch

 

I applied as an accountant CSL + MODL..got CO allocated in two months time.. got my medicals in and everything.. got a verification call as well.. my employer got one too..

 

My application is done with internal checks and they are now waiting to hear on my external checks.

 

I don't know how long its gonna take

 

Immigration is true pain for us HR individuals. Partly because of the lethargic attitude of the agencies in HR countries who don't reply in a timely manner.

[ITpro]

Hang in there.

 

I am also one of the unfortunates who are delayed by these external checks. They take like forever and its a b**ch

 

I applied as an accountant CSL + MODL..got CO allocated in two months time.. got my medicals in and everything.. got a verification call as well.. my employer got one too..

 

My application is done with internal checks and they are now waiting to hear on my external checks.

 

I don't know how long its gonna take

 

Immigration is true pain for us HR individuals. Partly because of the lethargic attitude of the agencies in HR countries who don't reply in a timely manner.

 

Hi there

 

What should we do now as they may change the priority processing again.

we need to come out of this mess other wise we will waist our time and money

 

It pro

[gr8leo87]

Hi there

 

What should we do now as they may change the priority processing again.

we need to come out of this mess other wise we will waist our time and money

 

It pro

If you have been assigned CO and everything else on your application is completed e.g internal checks then you won't be affected by the new priority processing.

[Guest rupani]

If you have been assigned CO and everything else on your application is completed e.g internal checks then you won't be affected by the new priority processing.

 

Hi,

 

What is the source of your statement?

 

Regards

[Guest Gollywobbler]

Hi IT Pro

 

Unfortunately, I agree with Rupani. On 16th March 2009, hundreds of people whose occupations were on the first version of the CSL had COs and their visas were about to be granted. Even the COs didn't know that the Minister had suddenly removed half of the occupations on the CSL earlier that morning. The Minister said that the change was to take effect immediately and the relevant visa applications would just have to be dumped, even when the visa applicant had already paid for police checks, meds etc at the requests of the COs.

 

Hundreds of visa applicants then complained to the Commonwealth Ombudsman. Who whitewashed the whole thing. According to the Ombudsman, DIAC could not be criticised because DIAC had not decided to waste the visa applicants' time and money in a sadistic little fit of malice. The Minister had decided to do it and the Ombudsman has no power to investigate the actions or decisions of a Minister, so the Ombudsman said.

 

There is a definite precedent for the Aussie Government's having done exactly what you fear that they might do to you, IT Pro. However there is nothing that you can do to prevent it from happening unless you have been waiting for the security checks for at least 6 months.

 

When does your CO say s/he initiated the security checks, please?

 

Cheers

 

Gill

[Guest guest41018]

Hi IT Pro

 

Unfortunately, I agree with Rupani. On 16th March 2009, hundreds of people whose occupations were on the first version of the CSL had COs and their visas were about to be granted. Even the COs didn't know that the Minister had suddenly removed half of the occupations on the CSL earlier that morning. The Minister said that the change was to take effect immediately and the relevant visa applications would just have to be dumped, even when the visa applicant had already paid for police checks, meds etc at the requests of the COs.

 

Hundreds of visa applicants then complained to the Commonwealth Ombudsman. Who whitewashed the whole thing. According to the Ombudsman, DIAC could not be criticised because DIAC had not decided to waste the visa applicants' time and money in a sadistic little fit of malice. The Minister had decided to do it and the Ombudsman has no power to investigate the actions or decisions of a Minister, so the Ombudsman said.

 

There is a definite precedent for the Aussie Government's having done exactly what you fear that they might do to you, IT Pro. However there is nothing that you can do to prevent it from happening unless you have been waiting for the security checks for at least 6 months.

 

When does your CO say s/he initiated the security checks, please?

 

Cheers

 

Gill

 

Hi Gill,

 

Two questions:

 

1) Given the July 2010 processing directive, do you think it is likely that there will be another directive soon and if so, what for and when ? I mean why would they introduce another directive when the current one is so relatively simple and there does not appear to be another innovation in the wings ? The SMPs have already been allowed for and appear to have taken the place of the CSL (effectively). We are in the special 'Hospital Pharmacist' category as you may know.

 

2) We have been waiting since January 2010 for my wife's 'Form 80 Character Check' (security) to come through. If we have been waiting for more than six months for the security checks, does that make any subsequent processing directive null and void if it works to our detriment ? We're feeling pretty vulnerable at the moment and some advice on this would be much appreciated.

 

Best wishes

 

Roundomus

[ITpro]

Dear Gill

 

Thank you for comments on my application situation the last document they had from us was form 80 which was sent to them on 03/05/2010 and soon it will be six months to this thing.

 

I have already made a complaint to IGIS regarding this thing and do u think they will do any thing about it?

 

i will be much obliged for your advice and guidence.

[Guest Gollywobbler]

Hi Gill,

 

Two questions:

 

1) Given the July 2010 processing directive, do you think it is likely that there will be another directive soon and if so, what for and when ? I mean why would they introduce another directive when the current one is so relatively simple and there does not appear to be another innovation in the wings ? The SMPs have already been allowed for and appear to have taken the place of the CSL (effectively). We are in the special 'Hospital Pharmacist' category as you may know.

 

2) We have been waiting since January 2010 for my wife's 'Form 80 Character Check' (security) to come through. If we have been waiting for more than six months for the security checks, does that make any subsequent processing directive null and void if it works to our detriment ? We're feeling pretty vulnerable at the moment and some advice on this would be much appreciated.

 

Best wishes

 

Roundomus

 

Hi Roundomus

 

No - the lengthy delay with your wife's security checks does not, by itself, make you vulnerable.

 

However, 10 months is an unreasonably long time. DIAC do make clerical errors. Then a junior skivvy working for DIAC reads their computer tick-list and does not realise that something has gone wrong. So instead of getting the problem by the scruff of its neck and sorting it out properly, once and for all. the skivvy makes excuses to the Global Feedback people.

 

The equally junior skivvy in the Global Feedback Unit does not process visa applications. S/he has been sent to the GFU instead. Consequently the GFU skivvy accepts whatever the ASPC skivvy has said, whereupon the feeble excuse is offered to the visa applicant as being the reason for a delay.

 

So far, I've cut this sort of red tape and error by skivvies twice.

 

The first one involved a Dutchman who had applied for a GSM visa with his second wife and the children from his first marriage. The CO was not convinced that the first wife had genuinely given her consent to removing the children from the Netherlands, so the whole thing was referred to the Aussie Embassy in Berlin, for Berlin to sort it all out.

 

Which made absolutely no sense because Dutch Law does not work in the way that the CO imagined. The ASPC produced feeble excuses. David Wilden in London passed on the feeble excuses. The Dutchman and I told Mr Wilden that these were just feeble excuses and we showed him why this is all that they were. Mr Wilden realised that the Dutchman and I were correct and that the ASPC staff had indeed made a mistake, and that their mistake had sent the whole thing into limbo because DIAC's system does not contain any "suspense accounts" for situations in which DIAC have made a mistake. The DIAC computer has been programmed to believe that DIAC's staff are infallible, so the whole application just disappears into limbo.

 

Mr Wilden realised that the Dutchman and I were correct. Whereupon Mr Wilden got somebody really senior at the ASPC onto the case. Then it was all sorted out and the visa was granted about 10 days later but without this sort of persistence by the Dutchman and I, without a doubt he would still be waiting for his visa.

 

A similar thing happened with an Egyptian visa applicant at about the same time. Again, she and I persisted with David Wilden until he realised that the ASPC had made a mistake, whereupon a senior person at the ASPC got the Egyptian lady's GSM visa granted within a few days as well.

 

There has been a fuss about Retail Pharmacists, as you know. I am not sure whether the fuss extends to Hospital Pharmacists as well. As I understand it, some of the doctors in Oz have been complaining that Pharmacists have been turning up with little or no command of adequate English and no knowledge about the sorts of drugs that are routinely prescribed in Australia. They have been giving the wrong drugs to the patients or giving them the wrong dosages etc. The doctors insist that, potentially, this is very dangerous - which it obviously is.

 

I have a feeling that DIAC may have used the extremelly blunt and useless instrument of simply stopping the processing of all visa applications by Pharmacists until this other issue is sorted out. However the staff at the ASC rely on a computerised "tick-list." This tick-list does not have the flexibility to show that a visa application has been held up on purpose and why it has been held up. From the point of view of the tick-list, the visa application appears to have stalled at the stage of the external security checks.

 

The junior skivvy is not even aware that there is/has been a fuss about Pharmacists. The junior skivvy merely studies the tick-list and believes what the tick-list appears to say. This then gets relayed to David Wilden, who also believes it unless somebody points out the skivvy is wrong and explains why the skivvy is wrong.

 

Mr Wilden is open minded and he is sufficiently senior to understand that if you pay peanuts, you will hire monkeys. Once he realises that there is a problem at the ASPC's end of things, my experience is that Mr Wilden does then get on top of it and he sorts it all out.

 

What have the ASPC told you in recent weeks, please? As I understand it, your wife is UK-trained and experienced, speaks fluent English and knows what the chemical compound is about with a particular drug. She knows that you do not give the XYZ Drug to a person whose problem is bunions because the XYZ Drug is for heart problems. Obviously, I'm not a Pharmacist so I don't know anything about how or when a competent Pharmacist would query a drug prescribed by a doctor or whatever the doctors in Oz have been complaining about. Your wife would understand what is likely to have gone wrong much more clearly than I would understand it.

 

However I would be prepared to bet that your application has fallen into a black hole and that the reason for the black hole is because she is a Pharmacist, not because of the security checks. I'm sure that David Wilden would be able to sort this out if my own hunch is correct.

 

Cheers

 

Gill

[Guest guest41018]

Hi Roundomus

 

No - the lengthy delay with your wife's security checks does not, by itself, make you vulnerable.

 

However, 10 months is an unreasonably long time. DIAC do make clerical errors. Then a junior skivvy working for DIAC reads their computer tick-list and does not realise that something has gone wrong. So instead of getting the problem by the scruff of its neck and sorting it out properly, once and for all. the skivvy makes excuses to the Global Feedback people.

 

The equally junior skivvy in the Global Feedback Unit does not process visa applications. S/he has been sent to the GFU instead. Consequently the GFU skivvy accepts whatever the ASPC skivvy has said, whereupon the feeble excuse is offered to the visa applicant as being the reason for a delay.

 

So far, I've cut this sort of red tape and error by skivvies twice.

 

The first one involved a Dutchman who had applied for a GSM visa with his second wife and the children from his first marriage. The CO was not convinced that the first wife had genuinely given her consent to removing the children from the Netherlands, so the whole thing was referred to the Aussie Embassy in Berlin, for Berlin to sort it all out.

 

Which made absolutely no sense because Dutch Law does not work in the way that the CO imagined. The ASPC produced feeble excuses. David Wilden in London passed on the feeble excuses. The Dutchman and I told Mr Wilden that these were just feeble excuses and we showed him why this is all that they were. Mr Wilden realised that the Dutchman and I were correct and that the ASPC staff had indeed made a mistake, and that their mistake had sent the whole thing into limbo because DIAC's system does not contain any "suspense accounts" for situations in which DIAC have made a mistake. The DIAC computer has been programmed to believe that DIAC's staff are infallible, so the whole application just disappears into limbo.

 

Mr Wilden realised that the Dutchman and I were correct. Whereupon Mr Wilden got somebody really senior at the ASPC onto the case. Then it was all sorted out and the visa was granted about 10 days later but without this sort of persistence by the Dutchman and I, without a doubt he would still be waiting for his visa.

 

A similar thing happened with an Egyptian visa applicant at about the same time. Again, she and I persisted with David Wilden until he realised that the ASPC had made a mistake, whereupon a senior person at the ASPC got the Egyptian lady's GSM visa granted within a few days as well.

 

There has been a fuss about Retail Pharmacists, as you know. I am not sure whether the fuss extends to Hospital Pharmacists as well. As I understand it, some of the doctors in Oz have been complaining that Pharmacists have been turning up with little or no command of adequate English and no knowledge about the sorts of drugs that are routinely prescribed in Australia. They have been giving the wrong drugs to the patients or giving them the wrong dosages etc. The doctors insist that, potentially, this is very dangerous - which it obviously is.

 

I have a feeling that DIAC may have used the extremelly blunt and useless instrument of simply stopping the processing of all visa applications by Pharmacists until this other issue is sorted out. However the staff at the ASC rely on a computerised "tick-list." This tick-list does not have the flexibility to show that a visa application has been held up on purpose and why it has been held up. From the point of view of the tick-list, the visa application appears to have stalled at the stage of the external security checks.

 

The junior skivvy is not even aware that there is/has been a fuss about Pharmacists. The junior skivvy merely studies the tick-list and believes what the tick-list appears to say. This then gets relayed to David Wilden, who also believes it unless somebody points out the skivvy is wrong and explains why the skivvy is wrong.

 

Mr Wilden is open minded and he is sufficiently senior to understand that if you pay peanuts, you will hire monkeys. Once he realises that there is a problem at the ASPC's end of things, my experience is that Mr Wilden does then get on top of it and he sorts it all out.

 

What have the ASPC told you in recent weeks, please? As I understand it, your wife is UK-trained and experienced, speaks fluent English and knows what the chemical compound is about with a particular drug. She knows that you do not give the XYZ Drug to a person whose problem is bunions because the XYZ Drug is for heart problems. Obviously, I'm not a Pharmacist so I don't know anything about how or when a competent Pharmacist would query a drug prescribed by a doctor or whatever the doctors in Oz have been complaining about. Your wife would understand what is likely to have gone wrong much more clearly than I would understand it.

 

However I would be prepared to bet that your application has fallen into a black hole and that the reason for the black hole is because she is a Pharmacist, not because of the security checks. I'm sure that David Wilden would be able to sort this out if my own hunch is correct.

 

Cheers

 

Gill

 

Hi Gill,

 

Thanks for that detailed response.

 

Just to fill you in: we are both British nationals, but my wife was born in Pakistan and, due to parental pressure, had to keep a Pakistani passport (last renewed for 5 years in 1997), even though nobody in her family has been resident in Pakistan for almost 30 years; I am British born and bred. My wife has been in the UK since the age of five (give or take like her siblings) and has received all her education (including pharmacy degree & MBA) in the UK, including postgraduate degrees from some of the very finest institutions in the UK (and the world), like myself. She has an IELTS score of 8.5 and is a registered (and unblemished) pharmacist both in the UK and, amusingly, Australia - she went and did the requisite four weeks a few years ago before the reciprocal agreement ended and did the examination for qualification there and did rather well - she has been to Australia on a 457 visa before. She has about 14 years post-qualification experience in retail, hospital & industrial pharmacy and is in a senior management position in one of the most well-known pharmaceutical giants. Incidentally, nobody on either side has a criminal record.

 

You may recall that I sent you a PM a few months ago; we wrote to David Wilden, who informed us that while my wife may be a British passport holder and resident, she also holds Pakistani citizenship; he copied in our migration agent who chucked a fit and asked us if we wanted to remove him. Incidentally, my wife has no Pakistani identity documents and was unaware that even though she has no passport, she is still classed as Pakistani - she was unaware until recently that it is actually possible to revoke a nationality. That's where we are at the moment. We are on the verge of writing to IGIS to find out if it is a problem at their end. We suspect that, given the fact that none of her family have been resident in Pakistan for so long, the information simply doesn't exist and the Pakistanis are looking for information from a pre-computerised era - just a hunch.

 

We are kind of at our wits end, hence were wondering what to do next - IGIS seems the logical next step and migration agent is okay with it. But contacting David Wilden might irritate the agent again, so we're kind of stuck. We've been told since the beginning of the year when we were asked to do our medicals/PCCs, the usual "routine processing....don't know how long" rubbish and nothing else on a monthly basis.

 

We were wondering what you would advise us to do right now and should the worst happen, a priority change, would we be able to complain given the time taken for the alleged security checks ? And do you think the priorities are likely to change ?

 

Many thanks again,

 

Roundomus

[gr8leo87]

I'm from Pakistan as well, looks like I'm in for some long wait eh?

What exactly are these security checks? I know checks done with external agencies. But who external agencies and what do they do? ASIO being one of external agencies. ASIO then in turn refers these cases to the authorities back to applicant's home country?

 

And in my case Pakistan, where I don't know how long might these agencies take to reply. They practically don't have sophisticated access to computer and alot of stuff is still actually on papers and in big bags back in the store room :-S

 

Is there anything we can do?

[gr8leo87]

Hi,

 

What is the source of your statement?

 

Regards

This is what I have heard from people on the 'other' forum.

 

And it only makes sense, most of the processing on your application is done. And now since its in external checks its gonna take quite a bit of time to receive them.

 

And by the time its received it would be time for your visa.

 

Remember cap and cease? People who had done medicals, basically into the last stages of their application they were issued visas. I'm talking about pre sep 2007 applicants.

 

So more than often they won't leave you in middle of nowhere if most of the stuff on your application is done. Atleast thats what I think so.

[Guest Gollywobbler]

Dear Gill

 

Thank you for comments on my application situation the last document they had from us was form 80 which was sent to them on 03/05/2010 and soon it will be six months to this thing.

 

I have already made a complaint to IGIS regarding this thing and do u think they will do any thing about it?

 

i will be much obliged for your advice and guidence.

 

Hi IT Pro

 

Are you from a High Risk country? If yes, you will need to chase the Aussie embassy in your home country as well.

 

What happens is that DIAC want the intelligence services in, say, Pakistan to rell DIAC abut Bloggs (a visa applicant from Pakistan.) So the ASPC contact the Aussie embassy in Pakistan. The embassy in Pakistan is the mysteriously-named "overseas post."

 

The ASPC ask the Aussie embassy in Pakistan to ask the security/intelligence services in Pakistan. Who are notorious about taking forever but the only thing that persuades them to assist the Aussies at all is Diplomatic Protocol etc. So the local Aussie embassy can pass on a Polite Request but they cannot demand anything and they cannot chase the local security people to get a move on.

 

However a person who is a Citizen of the HR country has every right to chase the security people in his own country himself if he so wishes and he thinks that chasing them might do some good.

 

IGIS will probably just make excuses but the Aussie embassy in your own country are usually very efficient, so if the real hold-up is with the security people in your country of origin, you may be able to chase them yourself but the Aussie embassy won't do that for you.

 

Cheers

 

Gill

[gr8leo87]

Hi IT Pro

 

Are you from a High Risk country? If yes, you will need to chase the Aussie embassy in your home country as well.

 

What happens is that DIAC want the intelligence services in, say, Pakistan to rell DIAC abut Bloggs (a visa applicant from Pakistan.) So the ASPC contact the Aussie embassy in Pakistan. The embassy in Pakistan is the mysteriously-named "overseas post."

 

The ASPC ask the Aussie embassy in Pakistan to ask the security/intelligence services in Pakistan. Who are notorious about taking forever but the only thing that persuades them to assist the Aussies at all is Diplomatic Protocol etc. So the local Aussie embassy can pass on a Polite Request but they cannot demand anything and they cannot chase the local security people to get a move on.

 

However a person who is a Citizen of the HR country has every right to chase the security people in his own country himself if he so wishes and he thinks that chasing them might do some good.

 

IGIS will probably just make excuses but the Aussie embassy in your own country are usually very efficient, so if the real hold-up is with the security people in your country of origin, you may be able to chase them yourself but the Aussie embassy won't do that for you.

 

Cheers

 

Gill

Yes I was thinking along those lines. But would Australian High Commission in Islamabad, Pakistan, will give me the names of the agencies which are responsible for replying them?

 

If I can get the names of the agencies from Australian High Commission then I could probably chase them.

 

Can you tell me how should I approach(I know I can call them and all, but what i mean by approach is what should I say to them) Australian Commission that will persuade them and they will give up the names of the authorities that are involved in these checks?

[Guest Gollywobbler]

I'm from Pakistan as well, looks like I'm in for some long wait eh?

What exactly are these security checks? I know checks done with external agencies. But who external agencies and what do they do? ASIO being one of external agencies. ASIO then in turn refers these cases to the authorities back to applicant's home country?

 

And in my case Pakistan, where I don't know how long might these agencies take to reply. They practically don't have sophisticated access to computer and alot of stuff is still actually on papers and in big bags back in the store room :-S

 

Is there anything we can do?

 

Hi there

 

The intelligence/security people in Pakistan are said to be notoriously slow about providing information to the visa people from the UK, Australia, Canada etc.

 

I don't even know who the security people in Pakistan might be. You need to ask around in Pakistan to find out who they are and how to contact them.

 

Very often, you are right. The local security/intelligence people might not have any real information that they are actually able to find. It could easily be that unless the person is a known terrorist, they are simply allowing a couple of years to elapse and then telling the Aussies that an exhaustive search has produced enough to satisfy the Aussies. The Aussies might suspect that this "exhaustive search" has consisted of doing nothing but they can't make allegations of that sort in Pakistan!

 

What happens is that the ASPC ask the Aussie embassy in Pakistan to contact the security/intelliegence services in Pakistan. So you need to contact the Aussie embassy in Pakistan to find out whether they have received any requests from Australia about you and what they have done.

 

Have you done all the obvious things? Eg, get hold of a cheap, ancient computer so that you can destroy the hard drive afterwards. Take the Microsoft security defaults down to zero. Then search for Pakistani websites that might reveal something useful. Throw the machine away when you have finished, because of the rubbish that is likely to make its way onto the hard drive in the course of your search. Don't use a good, recent purchase by way of a computer for this purpose unless you can afford to replace it once you have removed the hard drive and smashed it up with a hammer/set fire to it or whatever.

 

Cheers

 

Gill

[Guest Gollywobbler]

Yes I was thinking along those lines. But would Australian High Commission in Islamabad, Pakistan, will give me the names of the agencies which are responsible for replying them?

 

If I can get the names of the agencies from Australian High Commission then I could probably chase them.

 

Can you tell me how should I approach(I know I can call them and all, but what i mean by approach is what should I say to them) Australian Commission that will persuade them and they will give up the names of the authorities that are involved in these checks?

 

 

Hi again

 

No - the Aussie embassy in Pakistan will not tell you how to contact the people whom they are able to contact. You will have to figure that bit out by yourself.

 

Cheers

 

Gill

[Guest Gollywobbler]

Hi Gill,

 

Thanks for that detailed response.

 

Just to fill you in: we are both British nationals, but my wife was born in Pakistan and, due to parental pressure, had to keep a Pakistani passport (last renewed for 5 years in 1997), even though nobody in her family has been resident in Pakistan for almost 30 years; I am British born and bred. My wife has been in the UK since the age of five (give or take like her siblings) and has received all her education (including pharmacy degree & MBA) in the UK, including postgraduate degrees from some of the very finest institutions in the UK (and the world), like myself. She has an IELTS score of 8.5 and is a registered (and unblemished) pharmacist both in the UK and, amusingly, Australia - she went and did the requisite four weeks a few years ago before the reciprocal agreement ended and did the examination for qualification there and did rather well - she has been to Australia on a 457 visa before. She has about 14 years post-qualification experience in retail, hospital & industrial pharmacy and is in a senior management position in one of the most well-known pharmaceutical giants. Incidentally, nobody on either side has a criminal record.

 

You may recall that I sent you a PM a few months ago; we wrote to David Wilden, who informed us that while my wife may be a British passport holder and resident, she also holds Pakistani citizenship; he copied in our migration agent who chucked a fit and asked us if we wanted to remove him. Incidentally, my wife has no Pakistani identity documents and was unaware that even though she has no passport, she is still classed as Pakistani - she was unaware until recently that it is actually possible to revoke a nationality. That's where we are at the moment. We are on the verge of writing to IGIS to find out if it is a problem at their end. We suspect that, given the fact that none of her family have been resident in Pakistan for so long, the information simply doesn't exist and the Pakistanis are looking for information from a pre-computerised era - just a hunch.

 

We are kind of at our wits end, hence were wondering what to do next - IGIS seems the logical next step and migration agent is okay with it. But contacting David Wilden might irritate the agent again, so we're kind of stuck. We've been told since the beginning of the year when we were asked to do our medicals/PCCs, the usual "routine processing....don't know how long" rubbish and nothing else on a monthly basis.

 

We were wondering what you would advise us to do right now and should the worst happen, a priority change, would we be able to complain given the time taken for the alleged security checks ? And do you think the priorities are likely to change ?

 

Many thanks again,

 

Roundomus

 

 

Hi again

 

The logical next step is to find out about the fuss about Pharmacists who have emigrated to Oz.

 

Plainly, when some of the Pharmacists who have already emigrated to Oz are said to be so unfamiliar with the English language and so unfamiliar with the types and dosages of the drugs prescribed in Oz that the already-migrated Pharmacists are in danger of killing Aussies, the first thing that DIAC would do is to put a fatwah on all Pharmacists until DIAC gets a green light from elsewhere the Government.

 

The announcements from DIAC are extremely general and broad in nature. Your wife is one of the very few "odd men out" in the whole fuss about Pharmacists. However, Government departments like DIAC make no apologies for using very crude, blunt instruments that catch people like your wife. She is an unintentional target. She merely happens to be in the target group that is causing serious medical concern.

 

DIAC won't apologise for that because if she is as good as you say, a hospital in Australia in an area that is short of Hospital Pharmacists should be ripping her arms off to offer her an employer-sponsored visa and job, should they not?

 

DIAC themselves can't tell one Pharmacist from the next one. DIAC process visas for a living. They don't know anything about Pharmacy. It is not DIAC's job to know about Pharmacy. DIAC will not make the value-judgement between a Pharmacist who might be brilliant at Pharmacy in Oz and one who might kill an Aussie or two by mistake. DIAC will simply wait for somebody else in the Aussie Government to tell them what the Government wants DIAC to do about visa applications from Pharmacists.

 

Please click on my user-name to the left of this post and send me a quick e-mail, not a PM. Once I have your e-mail address, I will draft a letter to David, in Word, telling him that I think the real problem with your wife's visa application is that she is a Pharmacist. I strongly suspect that everything else is a red herring.

 

Once you and I are both happy with the draft, I will e-mail David myself, with a copy to you. I hardly ever get involved in individual visa applications myself. David knows that and he also knows that I wouldn't get involved with your own application unless it is because I think there is an unusual problem that he ought to look into. If he is given the right sort of prompting and is told where to look, he will go and look.

 

Pakistan is the wrong place to look because the real problem here is to look in the corner - the corner that deals with immigrant Pharmacists who are allegedly dangerous for the patients in Oz. Forget the burble about your visa application will be processed because you had a CO several months ago. No visa application will get processed if the prospective immigrant might kill an Aussie lying in a hospital bed, plainly.

 

I think that if we can find out what is happening about that bit, then it should be possible to get David to instruct the ASPC that your wife is one of the Pharmacists who should ve given a visa promptly, since she is plainly not going to kill anybody through poor English and/or an inadequate knowledge about the drugs used in Oz.

 

I do think that with her the problem is Pharmacy, not Pakistan, if you see what I mean.

 

Cheers

 

Gill

[Guest]

Yes i also want the answer of this as a case officer was allocated to me,asked some documents,provided him and here i am,waiting from last 2.5 years!!!!

No any pending case is effected by priority processing irrespective of the fact that at what stage your case may be!!

[gr8leo87]

Hi again

 

No - the Aussie embassy in Pakistan will not tell you how to contact the people whom they are able to contact. You will have to figure that bit out by yourself.

 

Cheers

 

Gill

Ok I was wondering if communication chain is DIAC - ASPC - Australian High Commission in the home country of applicant, then how ASIO is involved in these security checks?

 

What is the role of ASIO in these external checks? Or is it that ASIO contacts the agencies in Pakistan here?

[Guest stealth]

Ok I was wondering if communication chain is DIAC - ASPC - Australian High Commission in the home country of applicant, then how ASIO is involved in these security checks?

 

What is the role of ASIO in these external checks? Or is it that ASIO contacts the agencies in Pakistan here?

 

i am also from Pakistan and going through these checks since March`10...

 

it is really annoying....

 

ASIO confirmed to have received the referral...

 

it is not our fault that we were born in Pakistan...

 

anyways if you come up with any method to contact the local authority responsible to carry our these checks,do share the information!!!

 

thanks!!!